Workouts for Women: Yoga

2005-03-04, China Daily, Beijing

“Medically speaking, yoga is good for everyone. Women can benefit from yoga even more than with other fitness exercises,” said Huiping Mo, a veteran yogi who teaches Bikram yoga, also known as hot yoga, at the Beijing Shanti Yoga Centre.

As a time-honoured self-meditation exercise originated thousands of years ago in India, yoga has again become popular worldwide thanks to the dramatic and practical benefits it can bring to its practitioners.

According to Mo, yoga is particularly good for women. Yoga can be a practical treatment to gynaecological diseases and even reduces the incidence of breast and uterine cancer, Mo said. “Yoga functions as an overall massage to one’s internal organs, which is especially good for women.”

A graduate from the Indian Bikram Yoga College with various championship titles worldwide, the Taiwan-born professional dancer-turned-yogi never minces her words about the benefits of doing yoga, as she tries to encourage more people to give it a try.

“For women, yoga will do good to one both mentally and physically,” Mo explained. “As a way of meditation, yoga will greatly increase one’s mental abilities. As a result, you will have a well-metabolized body that will be reflected in better skin, vigorous energy and boosted confidence. Meanwhile, yoga will carve out better-portioned muscles for you than other exercises, because yoga stretches nearly every part of the body. Yoga is more suitable for women because it matches women’s elegant and delicate nature,” Mo said.

The yoga course Mo teaches, called Bikram yoga, were developed over 30 years ago by Bikram Choudhury. Bikram yoga is a series of 26 postures which work the entire body over a 90 minute period in a heated room, which promote flexibility and detoxification of the body.

She also pointed out that one can even do the postures at home, in a hotel room on a trip or even in the office once they have learned the sequence. “Maybe it looks too hard for you. But you have to try and allow your body to convince you to practice yoga.”